The Gurner/Chambers Wedding

WASHINGTON, D.C.

OCTOBER 7, 2017

OPENING COMMENTS

MICHAEL: What a truly wonderful day today is! When we witness pure beauty, we pause, amazed. 

We recognize magic when we see it. We revel in feelings, deep and beyond words, indisputable and timeless. 

They leave us breathless and fulfilled and amazed. This beauty, this magic, this feeling is called … LOVE.

I have known love and seen love … Gregory, my spouse and I knew love for 41 years & that love continues to grow each day even though he left us two years ago.

There was love in Gregory’s suggesting the name Whitney when Whitney’s parents were looking for a name beginning with “W” to honor Larry’s father Woodrow Wilson Gurner … and love in Gregory and my watching you grow up over the years.

There was love shining through when I first met Nick, and when I saw Facebook pictures of you two hiking together with the Capital Hiking Club. 

There is the now famous love story … of how you two, knowing no one at the hiking club, quickly got to hiking together and chatting. 

9.5 miles and 6 hours later, you agreed to meet for drinks the following week. And today you are getting married!

And we are all here to bare witness to this love … This transcendent, cherished moment.

Whitney and Nick … Nick and Whitney. When you are in love, you get to take a piece of this transcendence and take it with you into your daily life. 

You don’t have to trek to a river valley or to the top of a mountain to feel something important and indescribable; you can feel the beauty and enormity of the mountains within your own hearts and in each other’s eyes. 

And that is why we are here today. Because love is enormous, and to take even a tiny piece of love into yourself , to be able to experience and understand it, to share it with another; is the greatest gift in the world. 

Today, we are all here to take the time to celebrate and to witness this moment in your lives and to remember just how important love is to all of us. 

Whitney and Nick, together you experience love when you see the beauty of nature. In your eyes, there is something more than the trees and the meadows and the rocks; there is something deep, sacred, and more striking.

When you witness the mountains together, it evokes awe and splendor. It is indescribable and immense. This is the same feeling that you discovered by falling in love with one another. 

You fell in love by chance (or destiny,) … but you're here today because you're making a choice to commit to that love. And you are making that commitment as your family and friends bare witness.

You are choosing each other. You've each chosen to be with someone who enhances you, who makes you think, makes you smile, and makes your days brighter.

READING NUMBER ONE:

MICHAEL: I would like to invite Sarah Friedman to the Cuppah for our first reading.

A Wedding Poem - Neil Gaiman

This for you, for both of you,

a small poem of happiness filled with small glories and little triumphs

a fragile, short cheerful song

filled with hope and all sorts of futures

Because at weddings we imagine the future

Because it's all about "what happened next?”

all the work and negotiation and building and talk that makes even the tiniest happily ever after

something to be proud of for a wee forever

This is a small thought for both of you

like a feather or a prayer,

a wish of trust and love and hope

and fine brave hearts and true.

Like a tower, or a house made all of bones & dreams

and tomorrows and tomorrows and tomorrows

THOUGHTS FROM WHITNEY & NICK

MICHAEL:

Today Whitney and Nick stand before us to publicly declare their love and they would like me to share just a few of the “whys!”

• • •

Whitney loves how thoughtful Nick is, especially how much he supported her as she endured graduate school along with a full time job. 

She loves how he brings silliness into their everyday lives, like when he makes up stories about the goings-on of her stuffed animals. 

She loves all of the adventures that they go on together, even when the adventure is a trip to Target. 

But most of all, she loves the way he makes her feel loved and cared for every single day.

• • •

Nick loves Whitney's kindness, especially when she surprises him with baked goods after a long day of work. 

He loves her thirst for adventure, travel and the outdoors. 

He loves how she makes him laugh every day with her inappropriate sense of humor. 

She embraces his weirdness, especially his love of small, fuzzy creatures. 

And he loves her fanatical love of all things Harry Potter and Chicago Cubs which never fails to make him smile.

PROMISES 

MICHAEL: And now the both of you are about to make promises to each other that you intend to keep. You are going to promise to take care of each other, to stand up for one another, and find happiness in each other.

There's a simple premise to each of these promises: you're promising to be there. You're teaming up and saying to the other, "I want you to be a part of my life experiences and I want to be part of yours” . . .

Whitney, will you, keep Nick as your favorite person — to laugh with him, go on adventures with him, support him through life's tough moments, celebrate his successes, lift him up through his failures, be respectful of him as a person, grow old with him, and find new reasons to love him every day? Will you stand with him through this bond of marriage and love him through all that life may bring? Whitney, if you agree, say “I will!”

WHITNEY: I will.

MICHAEL: Nick, will you, keep Whitney as your favorite person — to laugh with her, go on adventures with her, support her through life's tough moments, celebrate her successes, lift her up through her failures, be respectful of her as a person, grow old with her, and find new reasons to love her every day? Will you stand with her through this bond of marriage and love her through all that life may bring? If you agree, “I will!”

NICK: I will.   

VOWS

MICHAEL: Please repeat after me in unison: 

We vow to be each other's partner

from this day forward.

We vow to bring out the best in one another, 

share our happiest moments together, 

support each other in our saddest moments, 

love each other absolutely

and respect each other totally 

… for the rest of this lifetime

and for whatever may come next?

MICHAEL: I ask you once more … do you agree to these vows? If you do, say “We do.

WHITNEY AND NICK: We do.

READING NUMBER TWO:

MICHAEL: I would like to invite Nicolette Elzie for our second reading.

An excerpt from Les Mis

What a grand thing it is to be loved! What a far grander thing it is to love! The heart becomes heroic, by dint of passion. It is no longer composed of anything but what is pure; it no longer rests on anything that is not elevated and great. An unworthy thought can no more germinate in it, than a nettle on a glacier. The serene and lofty soul, inaccessible to vulgar passions and emotions, dominating the clouds and the shades of this world, its follies, its lies, its hatreds, its vanities, its miseries, inhabits the blue of heaven, and no longer feels anything but profound and subterranean shocks of destiny, as the crests of mountains feel the shocks of earthquake.

EXCHANGE OF RINGS 

MICHAEL: You’ve both chosen to wear rings as a reminder of the promises you have made. People often say wedding bands are a perfect circle, with no beginning and no end. 

However, these rings did have a beginning. The metal was formed a long time ago deep within the earth. 

Eventually, a series of lucky events caused it to rise to the surface, where someone dug it up. 

The metal was then liquefied in a very hot furnace — molded, cooled, and painstakingly polished. 

Something beautiful was made from raw elements. Only then did the rings become a circle. 

So be it with your love; as you continue to mold, purify, and polish the love during your time together, as you create your perfect circle of life.

Emily and Nathan, Please give the rings to your sister and brother.

MICHAEL: Whitney and Nick, Nick and Whitney, please repeat after me in unison: 

I give you this ring as a symbol of my love. 

As it encircles your finger, 

may it remind you always 

that you are surrounded 

by my enduring love.

MICHAEL: 

Place the rings on each other’s finger …

You have just sealed your relationship by the giving and receiving of rings and you have committed verbally to sharing the rest of your lives with each other. 

BLESSINGS

MICHAEL: Before we finalize this ceremony, take this advice and these blessings from me to you.

Love is constantly changing.

To LOVE is to LIVE … which is to change.

You are different people than you were when you went to sleep last night.

You will be different people when you go to bed tonight than you were when you woke up this morning.

These differences, at the basic level, are due to sloughing off cells and growing new ones.

These differences are also based on your experiences as individuals and as a couple.

These differences are because of what you did today, what you saw today, what you heard today, what you said today.

These changes are what make life and love interesting and vital and in turn make your relationship interesting and vital.

My blessing for you … make sure you  change with the changes you will encounter, both individually and as a couple.

My blessing for you … see the lessons these changes teach you and the growth you encounter because of these changes.

My blessing for you … make sure that conscientiously work at making sure that your love for each other continues to grow and change,

… and my blessing for you … love each other and each day like tomorrow may never arrive!

THE KISS

By the power vested in me by the Universal Light Church and the Washington District of Colombia 

… and by the faith and trust given me by both of you to perform this ceremony 

… I now … Whitney and Nick, Nick and Whitney … pronounce you husband and wife, wife and husband. 

In addition to your promises and the exchanging of rings … you may now seal this profound, cherished moment once more … with a kiss.

Congratulations!

Spiritual vs Religious

Buddhism is more and more entering our life. Gregory has always said that if any religion meant anything to him it was Buddhism. I feel the same and have decided to learn more about it and to behave more like a Buddhist (although not sure what that means yet. I would suspect it embraces many of the ways that we already behave and will add a few more.)

We have three Tibetan Buddhist Prayer bowls (of high, medium, and low range) on the table by our front door. On leaving and entering the condo as well as on entering and leaving the day, we strike them gently with a wooden baton. The sound of their harmony is quite peaceful.

I used to call it "our way of praying" but then I would have to explain the spiritual vs religious, and the discomfort with the concept of prayer. We consider ourselves Spriitual NOT Religious. My discomfort with prayer comes, from among other reasons, 1) preferring to pray by myself instead of in a prescribed way, place, or time. 2) Not liking the idea of begging or promising to "be different" in exchange for better treatment. 3) making it seem like prayer excuses one from being responsible for one's own actions and life events, 4) Feeling like I am looking out for an answer instead of looking in. and 5) When "Bad Things Happen To Good People" not going into the "poor me, why me" mode as opposed to looking at how one can live with a positive mind set with what one is dealt ... because sometime "shit just happens."

Recently I have begun explaining the tradition (prayer bowls ceremony) as "Our way of acknowledging, by sending our message out into the universe, that there are forces and understandings far greater then we know at this point in time and hoping to learn from those forces and understandings." 

We also have a "Prayer Wheel" on the table. One spins the drum with its written prayer, fastened inside a hand painted alter type container, sending vibrations out into the universe with our message. In Japan, person sized drums are attached to the full length of temples and people spin them as they walk by as a from of prayer.

Another part of ouyr ceremony takes place continuously as the Tibetan Buddhist Prayer Flags, flying out on our balcony, slowly disintegrate  and send their threads out into the universe. I do not know what the prayers on the flags or drum say, but that really doesn't matter does it? Just the doing and the knowing that right will out is what counts.

We are adding one more piece to the ceremony, a bell that is inverted and struck by a small brass hammer. In contrast, prayer bowls sit on a cushion while this bell balances on a pin and therefore sounds purer and longer. The concept was introduced to us by our God Son Isaac who just returned from Japan. You sound the bell and then meditate for as long as you can hear the bell plus a little longer for that which you cannot hear. A moment to go within to see what awaits you.

Will share more as we continue or look at Buddhism, but I would guess that it is more a philosophy of life than it is a prescribed way of dealing with life.

George Hnilicka RIP

George, father and father-in-law of our dear friends John and Chuck, passed away after a long illness at the age of 84. His wife Reene died five years earlier. Gregory and I attended his funeral mass in Racine, Wisconsin. The Hnilicka family has been part of our family for three plus decades so it was important and meaningful for us to be at the mass.

Many of the family members participated in the mass and they had selected the various readings and musical pieces that were used during the mass. It lasted approximately 90 minutes.

I found myself analyzing the mass, funeral, and celebration of George's life. I found myself doing this in relation to what I had missed, not having attended the funeral of my own mother and father. While Gregory and I did our own form of celebration of their life, it felt very lonely. On the kitchen counter, where we also eat our meals, we set up an alter for each parent in their turn (March 5 2005 for dad and March 27 2010 for mom) which included burning a 24 hour candle next to their picture and a vase of beautiful flowers. Gregory and I lit the candle holding hands, said a few words of love, shed a few tears of sadness, and ended with, "Well good for her (him,) she (he) found their way out." We spend our breakfasts, lunches, and dinners for the next few days with our memories as reflected by the alter.

Our experience at George's mass was quite different. Being in church, there was a prescribed order, based on the tenants of the Catholic Church. The order was predictable, familiar, and comforting to the family. Each prayer found its proper place after the casket was rolled to the front of the church, escorted by George's extended family, for one last time. To the family, the songs were familiar, the prayers were familiar, the mass was familiar. The beliefs were united. Faith pervaded.

The priest would say, "May God be with you." and the congregation would reply, "And with you." People knew when to cross themselves, when to rise, when to be seated. There were comforting thoughts, music, candle light, responsive reading. At one point everyone wished those around them peace with hugs or hand shakes exchanged, sometimes with total strangers.

In this house of worship, most of the people in the congregation knew each other, had helped celebrate the life and death of the other congregants, had attended Sunday, holiday, special masses, had attended religious classes, had grown up together and were born or passed away each in their time.

For the most part the thoughts and prayers were appropriate and not too erroneous. Stories of an afterlife and future for the departed, the deceased's now peaceful repose, the walking hand in hand with Jesus were retold again and were familiar. They comforted if only because of their multiple repetitions over the years.

Whether one believes in any of what a religion has to say, loosing oneself in the dogma and stories of the church for at least a brief period of time has its place in the face of the mysterious, painful, sad, incomprehensible question and mourning of the death of a loved one.

When one does not have that support only the mystery, inability to really understand what death is all about, possible fear, and lonliness exists. The ceremonies are for the living. The dead are already well on their way. The older I get, the more I realize the value of tradition and ceremony, friends and family.